Not a dumb question at all. I'll answer for y because he just left town for a few days. He works for an event company that would include putting together very lavish and extreamly expensive flower arraingemnts for corporate dinners, golf tournaments, etc. And Rob's job is to locate (buyer) different flowers and cut foliage for these arraingements. And croton leaves are sometimes used in flower arraingements. Rob knows the flower and cut foliage business as good as the best of them. He's well traveled and has made numerous oversea trips to other countries to visit these farms.

I may be out of town, relaxing on the beach in Santa Barbara, but I still have to visit the Croton forum

There are plenty of croton leaves in FL Dean, but no one producing them for cut foliage, also, to have each one of those leaves here in Miami from Peru costs me only $0.14 a leaf!!! cant beat that, also the quantity and quality.

Ray, I did tell the farm to send me a assorted box of croton tips this weekend

Rick, I remember reading somewhere that crotons can root from the leaf, but they never develop trunk since there is no woody cells in that leaf, and if you were to plant it, the plant would just eventually die since it cant really develop!

i doubt it, I bring in a box of about 200 leaves maybe once, twice a week. you have to remember that in those climates, the product grows sooo much faster and better, labor is cheaper, chemicals are cheaper, ect ect.

in order to get 20 leaves per plant, those need to be some mature plants of decent size! and dont forget, these leaves need to be flawless. and also, 20 leaves per plant, that means 10 plants to fill 1 box!

Yeah, I was figuring something like 9,000 plants on 4 acres. That means you might need extra room for a packing house/barn. The plants would need to be a few years old and you need irrigation and shade, either a shadehouse or lots of tree canopy. If you interplant Royals or some other desirable palm you will have a secondary crop to boot.